The Proposal
by J S Arnold
Summary: Bamon: Damon is finally ready to pop the question, leaving behind his long stint as a single guy, but will the powers that be allow such a union? Or will he live forever in the shadows, desolate and alone?
1. The Engagement Part 1

A Bamon Fanfic

**The Engagement**

**Chapter 1**

Damon turned the air conditioning off with a flick of his fingers in the general direction of the dial. He realised at once that the ambient temperature was far too cool for a human to be comfortable, and that she chattered her teeth not just to fill the silence with the sound. To him, the temperature was fine enough, but to be truthful, he barely felt the cold any more.

His heart used to be cold, like ice, but as brittle as stone. Before, he hadn't met a girl who was not his dinner by default; things had been simple and he hadn't needed to think about what he was doing.

Meredith had been quiet from the moment he'd asked her for her help, not saying a word, because Damon was silent. The only sound was her breathing, but even that unsettled him. She'd come with him because he asked it, nicely, and that had surprised her into complying. It was only when they were pulling away from the house did she ask, "Damon," she tried to keep her voice stern, "Where are you taking me?"

He'd been pleased with how long she could be quiet, but at the same time he was even more glad she was speaking. The relative silence of a running motor vehicle was one of the worst things about these modern times; back when he was a human man, the only kind of effortless travel was horseback, and with that came the steady beat of the horses hooves on the stone roads, so you knew you were moving. This car moved so fluidly on the tarmac roads that his stomach twisted inside as he drove.

"Somewhere private – secluded." he amended the last word after hearing how it sounded – and didn't like it. He had to temper what he said if he were ever to be with Bonnie; she was fragile, easily spooked, and so very different from the Elena/Katherine thing he had thought he'd loved before. If he was to love his red-bird, he would have to do it gently.

Meredith flashed her eyes up at the darkening clouds, and then across the cab at Damon. She knew Damon, knew what he was and what he was capable of doing, and yet she had trusted him when he said he only wanted to talk. As they passed the sign, stating that they were leaving Mystic Falls, she began to seriously wonder how much of a sucker she'd been to just take him at his word. She shivered.

The car ride seemed to take forever from that point, but at last, Damon pulled over to the side of the road and almost ripped the keys out of the ignition. He was tense, and for more than reason. He preferred not to be alone with the slender, dark-haired girl, because she made things inside him tighten. He couldn't stand the thought of her rejecting his proposal.

"What is it, Damon?" she asked finally.

"I want your help – I need your help," he half stammered, and he brought out a sapphire blue box. He saw that she recognised what it was and stopped her thinking any more about it. He made a strangled noise, "For Bonnie, I'm going to ask her to marry me."

She wasn't surprised, or maybe she was just a little bit, and that was because she'd already guessed as much from watching them both. She turned to him and smiled, something so rare and pure, "What is it, Damon?" she asked once more.

"I need you to get Elena out of the picture, if just for tonight."


	2. The Engagement Part 2

The Engagement

Part 2

Elena knocked on the painted white door, her foot already tapping impatiently on the floor-boards outside, the way only she could do and still be serious. Bonnie was still snoozing under her covers and was jostled awake by two pail hands on her shoulders. She knew it was late, but the news she had to share would be worth the dark looks that had met her at the front door.

"Elena?" Bonnie asked, her voice thick with sleep and uneasiness.

"Guess what?" Elena exclaimed, almost catching Bonnie's legs when she flopped down on the bed. She seemed to vibrate with excitement, as if all the things she wanted to say were struggling to get out. Without waiting for a reply, she squealed, "Stefan asked me to marry him!"

Bonnie felt herself blush with jealousy and a coldness she couldn't describe. At once, she felt all the hopeless desolation which had been building inside her solidify into something as hard as diamonds, and as cold and deadening as ice. She wondered if Damon would tell her that it was over before he left that night, that he was leaving because of _her._

She knew he still loved Elena, in a way, but hadn't he said Bonnie had replaced her in his heart? Did he really mean it when he said he loved her, or was she just a girl to be with until he got the real deal? Why was it always Elena?

"Bonnie?" she half asked, the gleam of excitement fading slightly in the midst of confusion, a puzzled look on her face. She just couldn't seem to understand how her own happiness couldn't touch her friend; she felt so happy, felt the glow to her skin ignited, and yet none of it seemed to be inside the other girl. She was disappointed by the less than gleeful reaction of her friend, and indignant. Why didn't she act pleased? Was it too much to ask? Elena made a sound that was more frustrated than tired. "It's late, I'll let you get back to sleep."

"Oh, Elena," Bonnie said, a little louder this time, sitting up in her bed and watching Elena disappear through the door. She wasn't going to chase after her – there was no doubt in her mind that it wouldn't be worth it if she did.

X

Elena smiled at Bonnie's mother as she came down the stairs, just as if everything was fine, even when it wasn't. She stepped through the entrance and out into the cold, dark, night. The air seemed to nip at her cheeks as she made her way down the path, but the skeleton branches above her made her shiver. This was not a night to invite things inside, she thought with a shiver, thinking of the time when they invited Damon in without knowing what they were starting.

X

Two taps at her window and she turned toward the sound. At first, all she saw was a bird, a bird with feathers highlighted with blue, but in a shiver of power it disappeared.

She crossed to the window and opened it wide enough for a man to slip in. "Come in." she said.

And he did.


	3. A Lover Scorned

A Lover Scorned

3

"Were you listening?" Bonnie asked, her voice so devoid of any emotion that even a vampire could not make out what she was thinking. She went on in that same wintry voice that seemed so brittle. She asked the question, but it was obvious that she already knew the answer. "Of course you were," she went on without a reply, "Are you here to tell me it's over? That's why you were outside my window, listening. You wanted me alone when you say what you are about to say..." She buried her face in her hands and began to sniffle.

"No," Damon said softly, then louder, "No! I mean, yes. Yes I was listening. But no, I did not come here to tell you it's over. It, our relationship, will never end because of me. I will love you forever, but if you should ever want to leave _me_ I would let you. I love you, Bonnie McCullough, I love you more than even my teddy-bear of a brother could ever dream of loving Elena."

Bonnie had to admit out-loud that this made her feel a little better, though not quite all the way.

He held her hand in his and caressed it with the most gentle of touches, his power seeping into her through her skin. He reached into his breast pocket and retrieved something from it that gleamed brightly in the artificial light overhead. "I've known that I love you since the first moment we met, do you remember that? I do. I will remember it as the first moment that I knew love."

She felt the corners of her mouth twist upwards and she did not fight the smile when it came.

He kissed her smiling lips as if they were as delicate as rose petals, fragile and fragrant, "Will you do me the honour of being my wife?" he said, in that voice which would forever remind her of when it all began.

Damon's rage was not something to be taken lightly, and Stefan should know enough about his brother's character to be sure of that. Damon approached in the way of a predator; his lengthy strides across the room as languid as a lion stalking prey, his eyes as intense and cold as a starving wolf. The predator watched as his target slowly began to recoil out of fear. "Sometimes I wonder why I let you live at all... little brother," the animal snarled, "I should kill you right at this moment, instead of waiting, you know how I _hate_ waiting. I wonder how Elena would feel if her fiancé were to just," he snapped his fingers in the air, the sound a decisive click in the silence of the mansion's parlour, "leave?"

Stefan's face changed subtly, trying to maintain the illusion that he was calm when in fact his insides were churning. Damon knew his brother well enough to know when he'd finally got his point across. It wasn't so much that he was embarrassed that he hadn't done it first, that wasn't the part that hurt him even now, it was the look on Bonnie's face when Elena made her announcement. For that, he would never forgive either of them.

"Why aren't you talking, Stefan? Cat got your tongue, or has Elena? You know the kind of torture I can serve to those who deserve it, and yet you test me again and again." He shook the limp body. "Where is Elena?"

Stefan kept silent.

"Tell me brother, tell me where she is." But there were no need for words, the answer was in his eyes. "Upstairs you say?" He said lightly, agreeably, stepping back and smiling.


	4. Blood Red Roses

**Blood Red Roses**

He could have moved silently had he wanted to. He could have made it so she didn't know he was coming for her until it was too late to run, but that would be boring, and Damon Salvatore didn't do boring. By the time he reached the upstairs landing, he wanted the fear to be strong, pungent in the air, so he made his steps purposefully heavy. Rationally, he knew that it was Stefan who should be punished, but he knew it would hurt him too if he bullied Elena a little – they both deserved it, after all. Her heart beat thundered deliciously in his ears.

Stefan was unconscious on the floor below, the broken bones in his face slowly mending. He couldn't remember the last time he'd fed on more than a rabbit, and the lack of blood was beginning to take it's toll on all of his powers. Right now, he had the strength of a human and only a fraction quicker healing. His arm was still broken, twisted at an angle behind his back, and his cheek bone must be cracked from the force of Damon's fist ploughing into him. The worst injury, though, was his inability to fight the darkness which kept dragging him deeper.

Damon heard her gasp as he slowly inched the door open with a creak. Elena was sitting, frozen, on her bed when he first saw her. Her eyes were wide and her fingers were trembling in the lap. She gulped, but he could only see her throat move. He was intent on that throat, and it was clear that she knew it. "Elena," he said coaxingly, with each step closer to touching her, "you must know why I am here. Do you like feeling pain, or just inflicting it, Elena?"

Elena screamed shortly and stood at once. For a heartbeat they stared at each other, the owl and the mouse, the owl waiting for the prey to make the first move. That's how it worked, in the wild, in nature, part of why birds of prey intimidate before they strike. It's more fun if the prey runs. He caught her before she had moved two steps and pushed her to the floor at his feet. She tried to stand but he held her down, ensnaring her in his arms and not giving her any use of her upper body.

"Damon, let go of me! Let go!" she shouted, glaring at him, too frightened of the beast to consider using her legs as a weapon. "Please!"

He put his lips on hers, but what he was doing wasn't kissing. He pinned her to the floor with his mouth and used his left hand to grip her chin. His right he used to pinch the soft skin at the bottom-centre of her neck, causing her to gag and struggle as he slowly cut off her oxygen.

"The ring," he said.

"What?" she choked, done with thrashing and lying still beneath him. She'd never been so roughly treated in her entire life, and even Klaus had never hit her like Damon did. He slapped her to make Stefan suffer that little bit more, hoping that his hand on the side of her face would leave a bruise. He took her hand and held it up in front of him.

"The ring," he said again, and instead of waiting for her to move he grasped the diamond ring and tugged it off her finger. She tried to snatch it back, but her human reflexes were no match for his vampiric speed. As soon as he gripped it tightly, he stood up seamlessly and disappeared in a blur of speed. He left Elena staring after him while clutching her bare ring finger.

He leapt from the second story window and landed as graceful as a cat on the grass outside. Mrs Flowers was not outside to see him, and for that he was glad. It was not his inhuman abilities that he would rather she not see, but instead the red rose he plucked from her garden. She would probably tell him he could have it anyway, she was a kind woman, but he would rather not have to ask for something he could just as easily take.


	5. Flames Of Passion

**Flames Of Passion**

She could not understand it, but just knowing that Damon was somehow making trouble with Elena or Stefan, or both, filled her with dread. Elena was her friend, hopefully still was, but even Bonnie had to admit that this friendship was barely holding together as it was. Now that she knew her secret, the thing she had been keeping from almost everyone for months, would there be anything left to salvage of it when all was said and done?

Bonnie felt the her fingers give under the weight of the leather bound book and saw the pen topple to the floor beside the bed. Blue ink bled onto the pink rug from it's tip and a stain had already pooled beneath it. The purple diary was lying open on the floor, it's open pages facing the floor, and for a moment she let herself worry if it would still be unusable should she want to write in it again. The rug was ruined now, not salvageable she thought, and she wanted to forget if it was all over; her friendship with Elena, her romance with Damon, the rug she had gotten for Christmas one year.

She brought the stained rug into the bathroom and shut and locked the door behind her. She knew the risks of what she was about to do but didn't think about them. If she thought too much about anything, she knew that the little voice that whispered in her brain would tell her to stop and that she was being silly. Silly little Bonnie: She didn't want to hear that from anyone, and especially not herself. The rug fit nicely into the bathtub and the candle she lit on the tub beside it was blue.

**XxX**

Stefan deserved what he got, and Damon refused to feel guilty about anything. Almost anything. Perhaps one thing. Bonnie; why had he left her alone, when he could see how upset she was by the whole fiasco, with her guilt so ripe inside her? What had he been thinking, leaving the one he loved to go be with another who he hated with a passion? It was a mistake that would never happen again, and there was nothing that could change that fact.

Something strong was tugging him in the direction of her house. He didn't believe in intuition, but he would have built a shrine to instinct. He had been alive for centuries, evaded many men and woman whose intention had been to kill him, all because he had unwavering instinct about what danger there was in the world. He sniffed the air, went still, and moved so suddenly that it seemed as if he had simply disappeared. He ran through the street and didn't care about how he looked to anyone who might be watching. Anyone who watched, they didn't matter, all that mattered was that he ran as fast as he could.

He ignored the piercing siren of the fire-engine and the screams. He knew none of them were her's, but that gave no comfort at all. Just because she didn't scream didn't mean that she was somewhere safe. The chances were that she was still inside, he thought as he scanned the faces of the humans around where he stood, and that she was unconscious. Breathing smoke would do that to you, if you were human, and by now she would have succumbed.

Raised voices followed him as he sprinted for the front door, which was wide open showing the dark interior of the hallway. He could tell just by looking at the splintered door that it had been forced down, and also that the fire had not reached the downstairs. He guessed that the fire was isolated to one part of the house, a single room maybe, and definitely on the next floor up. Someone clamped a hand on his shoulder and he turned. He hadn't known that the change had come over him until he saw his own reflection in the fireman's eyes and the fear stamped on the human man's face. He shoved the man back out into the bright sunlight and disappeared into the smoke and debris.

He couldn't hear her breathing or her heartbeat over the crackling roar of the flames bursting around him.

**XxX**

Bonnie tried to twist the knobs on the taps but the flames were just too close. Even if they did not touch her, she could imagine how it would feel. If she could just ignore the fear and turn the tap on she could begin to fight the fire, and she would have to soon. With every second, the air grew harder to breathe and the smoke clouded her eyes. It was so hot inside the little room. She through the shower-head she had been holding into the fire and stared at her tingling fingers. They were red and burned and bleeding, and numb. They shouldn't be numb, she thought, I should feel something – anything.

**XxX**

He followed the smoke along the corridor to the furthest room on the left, following his instinct on where she could be. It was her bedroom and the ceiling above him was clouded with wisps of grey that hadn't been there before. His mind registered everything, the smell, the smoke, the roar of flames, but it took a second or two to make himself move towards the little bathroom that was her's.

"Bonnie?" he asked the closed door, "Bonnie!" She coughed and he knew she was still alive – the dead were silent.

"Stand away from the door," he shouted, hearing other's enter the house below him. He only had a few more seconds before he was unable to do what he knew he had to. He broke the door down moments before the firemen reached him and found her clinging to the wall furthest from the flames.

He felt her clinging to him and he pressed her tighter.

**XxX**

Smoke had blackened his face and burnt skin was flaking away to reveal new layers underneath. Bonnie closed her eyes and tried not to recognise the smell of charred flesh on his neck as she pressed her face against him.


	6. Bamon

A/N: Damon took the ring from Elena because Elena had gloated about her engagement to Stefan and made Bonnie sad. I tried to portray the feverish mind of Damon in love - Elena hurt Bonnie, in a way, so he was hurting her back.

All I can say about this chapter was that I was craving one-on-oneness Bamon style.

**Bamon**

In nature was where the powers were strongest, or so Katherine had told him as much at the beginning. Damon carried her into the forest, weaving between the tall trees until they were deep enough into the shadows that they were practically invisible if anyone were to search. He set Bonnie down on her feet, clutching her waist at either side with his hands when she wobbled uneasily, and made sure her back was against a trunk. He could smell the scent of burning rubber in her hair and thought of how close she came to be taken from him. Elena would have to be dealt with some way or another; He would not allow his red-bird to be so close to death again, he would not leave her unprotected, he could not.

Her head hung forwards like a rag doll's, but she did not have the strength to raise it to his, even if all she wanted was to hold him too. She wanted him to tell her this was just a nightmare, that soon she would wake up, and that what had happened wasn't real. She hadn't meant to put herself in danger like that; she just wanted to burn the rug to ashes. She hadn't thought that people actually meant it when they explained to therapists or the police that they just needed to burn something, but hadn't that been almost exactly how she had felt? A therapist might even say that the fire was just misplaced anger – anger towards Elena, anger towards herself.

"How are you feeling?" Damon asked her with downcast eyes, "Did the fire touch you?" He worried that she had taken in smoke, remembering how damaging that was to a human. She coughed hard, spitting dark fluid into the fallen leaves, and his stomach tightened painfully. Damn Elena, damn Stefan, damn the whole stupid town. He wanted to leave it all behind, run away from everything, but he would not go anywhere without her beside him.

"I'd say..." she seemed to think about it for a moment, then gave a weak smile, "I feel like a baked marshmallow – all toasted on the inside..." He laughed and made her flinch in surprise.

"All soft and gooey on the inside?" he asked. Sometimes, just when he would forget how adorable she was, she would liken herself to something so appropriate that he would find himself thinking it all over again. She really was the most unlikeliest person that Elena would choose to be friends with.

His hands were still on her waist, his fingers fluttering softly, and she gulped audibly. It wasn't that what he said had frightened her, but the words had conjured images in her mind that brought blood to her cheeks. She knew she was blushing like crazy, she was imagining what he would taste like inside, and the thought was just so strange to her. She'd never thought about this before, about anyone, but she had never dreamt of truly being in love. "I guess so," she breathed.

Damon kissed her softly, light pecks on her cheeks and forehead and lips, but Bonnie pressed herself into him harder. The kisses became more heated, passionate, and his hands groped her body. It would have hurt her to be handled like this by anyone else, but when Damon held her as tight as this nothing could have been more further from pain. The tree she leant against shook a little and droplets of dew fell on both of them like rain.

"Will you be mine forever?" he asked, taking her chin between his fingers gently, his mind running at full speed. He dropped his hands to hers and bent one knee, "Do you want to be mine forever?"

She knew what he was asking and knew that he meant what he said. Pulling his head down to hers, she kissed his full lips and rested him on her shoulder. She didn't have to think twice. "Yes."

And he bit her.


	7. The New World Part 1

The New World Part 1

Bonnie felt wide awake even before she had fully opened her eyes, as if she could somehow sense the room without them. She knew with certainty that it was Damon cradling her against his lean body just by the power radiating off of his skin. Before, the aura had been something figurative and more to do with sight, but now she could feel it on her fingertips. It surrounded her like something liquid, but nothing but him could fill her like this.

Damon felt her shift in his arms and he opened his eyes to look down at her petite form. She was so lovely, but so fragile and breakable that every touch felt like a dare. Dare he touch her here, or here, or there? He knew that, however much he wanted to hold her as tightly as he could, if we weren't careful about every movement she might break. "Good morning," he said.

"Morning?" she asked, still half-asleep and almost incoherent, "Is it really morning – have I really slept that long?" For reasons that he could not understand, the little creature seemed worried.

"Well, no," he admitted with a curl to his lips that was more self-mocking than humorous, "I'm afraid you have slept in a little, little red bird."

"What?"

"You've been..." he tried to come up with a better word for it, but found none, "...dead... for a couple of days," he saw the panicked look in her eyes, "but I've been here with you every moment since – holding you like this." He tightened his grip around her so that she was right up against his chest. He loved the feel of her there, but he did it so she would understand that he would never leave her.

She closed her eyes and a vivid image danced behind her lids. Damon bent over her, his lips at her throat, her own face frozen, a mask of surprised pain. Had it hurt, him biting her? She could not remember, everything from before seemed so dreamlike now. Before. Before what? What had he done to her, What was she now?

He tilted her face to mirror his and pulled it closer. He knew that it had worked, that now she was his forever; he knew she would taste herself in his mouth and the thought excited him. She was closer to him, the same as him, now and he would delight in showing her the many pleasures that were beyond any humans' understanding.

He had bitten her, that much was obvious, though there was no scar on the side of her neck. She was almost scared to ask him about it, afraid that she was wrong and he would feel the need to correct it. There was something dreadfully ominous about the idea of a witch-vampire hybrid and the balance of nature. As a witch, everything she had known about magic had been about the natural order, of trees and their wisdom, but as a vampire did she have any connection to that part of her left?

"What did you do?" she found herself asking, more to herself than to Damon, and he made a noise of pain that punctured the air as a pin punctures a balloon. It was strange, but now her head was emptied of any human thoughts, she could think with pristine clarity and decisiveness. It was as if becoming a vampire-witch had washed away any past worries so that she could concentrate on what was happening right at this second.

"Bonnie I..." he stopped, lowered his eyes for a fraction of a second, then continued, "Bonnie, I shouldn't have done it, but Bonnie," he ran his hand though his black-as-soot hair, "I Love you. I love you more than I love... anything, I love you..."

She was speechless, she couldn't have said a word even if she had wanted to, but she could wrap her arms around him. And she did.

Later, after she had gotten dressed, she found herself unable to venture anywhere near the windows. It was not an actual force working against her that made nearing it impossible, but instead the searing heat that seemed to sizzle her skin. The first time she tried to open the curtains, as she usually did each morning when she awoke, the afternoon sun burnt her arm with the same effect as frying pan. Her skin had blistered and turned black in places. The second time she tried, Damon forced her back into the shadows of the closet with enough force to make the whole thing shudder.

"Porca troia!" Damon swore in Italian, standing still for a moment in front of the shaft of sunlight, "Are you trying to get yourself killed?"


	8. The New World Part 2

The New World Part 2

"Nothing has ever hurt like that before," Bonnie whispered through the tears that fell from her eyes in great droplets, "It feels like being set alight from inside." She sat on the bed, clutching her chest with one arm as if she were cold, with the burnt arm stretched before her and illuminated by the candle he held over the rapidly healing skin. His eyes were so dark, she thought, that even in the flickering light of the candle they shone black.

"Without the magic of a ring like this one," Damon shook his ring-hand a little as he spoke, "facing the day and it's many shining rays is impossible."

Meredith shook her head and continued reading the heavy leather book, "No, Elena. I don't think it's wise to go after Damon today – at least not while Bonnie is missing. Rational Damon you can deal with, but Irrational? Elena, you've seen what destruction he is capable of, and who knows what frame of mind he is in?"

"I just..." Elena paused in her pacing to pirouette on one foot and fix Meredith with a disbelieving look. She was good at those looks. "Don't you think it's a bit too much of a coincidence that the moment Bonnie disappears Damon takes off without a word?"

"What are you getting at Elena? I'm pretty confident that it _is _just a coincidence," she saw the look in the other girl's eyes and stopped. There was something in that gleam that was more than just fear for a friend's safety, something closer to anger. Why was she angry? Who was she angry with? Was it Damon, for jeopardising Bonnie's safety, or was it Bonnie, for stealing Damon away?

"Well I'm not," Elena replied, her tone saying that there would be no arguing, "I think we should go after them," she had a fierce glint in her eye, "-to make sure she's safe." she added, as if it were only an after thought, "...and to make sure Damon understands that it won't happen again."

Bonnie straightened from her leant position over the white rabbit, wiping the excess blood from her lips, and Damon thought that he could at least understand a little of what she was feeling. His princess wasn't comfortable with the idea of taking blood from living creatures, or at least not yet. He tried to remember how long it had taken him to become accustomed to drinking the red liquid and remembered that it hadn't been very long, but he had been a very different kind of human than she was. He had already been used to taking what he wanted and the transition into vampirism had been swift and almost seamless. He remembered thinking that he had been born for such an existence, but he didn't try to lie to himself that Bonnie's was the same.

"Better?" Damon asked, watching as her skin grew slightly rosy.

She didn't know how she should answer his question. She could admit to herself that she felt better than she ever had before, more alive than any living human could ever be, but admitting that seemed like admitting too much. She nodded, rising to her feet and moving into the darkest of the shadows, away from where he could see her face. "Is it dead?" she asked him of the little creature at her feet, fearing that she had killed it.

There was an ache inside him that he wasn't used to feeling, like chagrin but more bitter. It seemed the wrong thing to do to tell her the truth on this occasion, and yet he knew that the right thing to do would be to tell her the truth – it was what he owed her for the life he had thrust upon her so recklessly.

She could see the answer in his face, in the shadows of his eyes, in the set of his jaw. She could tell just by how he pursed his lips that he thought she wouldn't understand the concept of death, which was silly. How could she not understand after everything she had been through and all that she knew? It didn't hurt any less, her slaying of one of nature's creatures, but she knew that it was just how life was for her now.

"Damon, I've seen death before, there's no need to protect me from the truth."

He forgot that sometimes, but it wouldn't change anything now that he remembered. She was still his red-bird, and he would still be her protector against any evil that tried to hurt her.

There was a snap of twigs under feet from behind them and they both spun around simultaneously. It was as if they both were thinking the exact same thing as they waited in the near silence of the forest, both waiting for the thing watching them to make the first move. When there were no more rustling in the trees, Damon stepped forwards and growled a warning than all the creatures in the forest could understand. It was a very primal sound.

"Who's there?" he snarled, his eyes turning as black as midnight, "Come out and show yourself, unless you're frightened..."

Something as hard as stone wrapped around her waist, getting tighter and tighter, constricting her like a snake. She tried to speak but she could hardly breathe and with every second it only grew harder. _Damon! _She called in her mind, praying with everything she had that he would turn around before the thing stole her away, _Damon!_

There was a pressure at his back and he turned with that vampiric quickness to see Bonnie's frightened face being pulled back into the wall of trees by something with claws the length of knives and eyes that glowed red in the dark.


	9. Digging A Grave part 1

**Digging a Grave Part 1**

He stood for a moment before the place where she was taken, snatched away, before his brain registered that he could not hear her heart beat any more. He was frozen for those precious seconds, his mind twenty paces in front of his body, as he tried to understand what had just happened. He had always prided himself on his mental control but he could not stop the images which showed them-selves now. They were images of Bonnie, some of her dead, and the one's where she was alive were impossible to catch as they fluttered before his mind's eye. Only images of her pale, limp, still body stuck.

This was his fault. If it weren't for his proposal, Bonnie would be with Elena and she would be safe. Even as much as he despised Elena for interfering where she had no business, he could admit to anyone who asked that maybe he should have known the powers that be would never let him find happiness when he had done so much wrong. The least he could do was try to show them that he was sorry for it all.

Elena was sat at the kitchen counter when Damon let himself in to the house, and her back stiffened in her chair when she sensed him approach. Meredith was further into the room, but she too had stopped what she was doing, which had been scrubbing dishes in the sink. The silence was palpable in the small space, and Damon shaped it with his fingers. "Elena," he said, the animosity in his voice crystal clear, "Something has happened to Bonnie."

She couldn't speak, because if she opened her mouth she would say that she had seen this coming, but it was Bonnie who could see the future.

Bonnie felt the dark before she saw it, and when she opened her eyes it was all around her. Cold prickled her skin and created the sensation of spiders crawling all up her arms. She swiped at these imaginary insects, batting the goosebumps on her skin, and hoped that they would all drop off as she ran. She didn't know where she was running to, or from what she was running, but something inhuman had forced her into these shadows. If it was inhuman, the chances were that however fast she ran, how long she ran for, she had no chance in this dark forest.

She ran into something solid and she stumbled backwards blindly, twigs breaking beneath her feet, but the thing before her caught her wrist and laughed throatily. Her first reaction to the sound was relief, surely nothing that wanted to hurt her would laugh about it, but the tightness of the things grip felt as if it were sending her heart into overdrive.

He hit Elena, hard enough that he was sure to break something, and the next thing he knew she was flying back into the darkness. He growled, but that was all he was capable of, at least until he had control of his rage. He could do so much more when he was as p*ssed as this, but most of those things would not help him to get his red bird back. Blood seeped from Elena's mouth and dribbled miserably down her chin.

"You do know that Tyler's a effing' werewolf, right?" Damon asked, his voice even more chipper than usual, "You know he doesn't give a damn what happens either way. What did he want in exchange for this little favour, I wonder?"

Elena turned her face to his and the lines tightened around her lips, "He _hates_ vampires, does he need any more of a reason to hunt Bonnie down?" She moved away from him almost in a dance, her face averted for a moment as if she wanted to hide some emotion that was playing across her face. When she turned back to him, her expression was the cool, emotionless mask which seemed as wicked as a grin in the face of destruction. "It's her own fault anyway."

He hit her again, harder than ever before, because if it wasn't his fault this had happened, it was definitely Elena's.

"Where is she, Elena?" he breathed onto her neck; he saw her gulp and her fear only fed his lust to find her. "_Tell me_..."

"The Graveyard." She whispered

"You like dead guys, I'm gonna take you to some dead guys," Tyler promised in response to her question, where was he taking her? "Not near the Lockwood graves, don't want to mess them up," he gave a short bark of laughter, "I'm afraid we're going deeper than anyone has gone in a long time – to the old cemetry."


	10. Digging A Grave Part 2

Digging A Grave

Part 2

Damon was used to the graveyard, he would have to be by now, but he felt lost among the tombstones. This was a place for the dead, Bonnie should not be anywhere near this place, and yet she was somewhere near. He didn't know how he could be so sure of it, only that it was his instincts he was following and they had never let him down before. He refrained from calling out her name as he listened for breathing and waited for the smell wolf to grow stronger. He could smell something canine and something not. Both smells were familiar and acrid in the air, leading him forwards towards one of the plots where the ground had been upturned fairly recently. He crept closer and both scents grew stronger, becoming so strong that he knew he was close.

A growl sounded from behind him, a slow building, menacing, sound to remind him that finding his lovely Bonnie would have to wait a little longer. He turned and felt himself becoming something dark enough to match the starless, moonless, night that had fallen. He snarled and bared his own teeth at the beast that stood before him. "Walkies already?" he sneered, playing on the fact that the monster was only a really big dog, "You should really be tied to something, like a lampost."

"Shut up, Salvatore," It snarled, baring it's glistening white teeth, "Have you forgotten who has the upper hand here?"

Damon smiled a smile that did not reach his eyes, trying to listen past the heavy thumping of Tyler's heart as he stood there, trying to act as if he didn't care that he had no chance of winning a fight if there was one. Damon could hear her breathing hard, breathlessly, and yet he knew he needed help to find the exact location of where she was held. He turned to Tyler in one dizzyingly fast move and fixed him with a glare that would have destroyed the mind of a human in a second – there was that much power directed to his eyes.

"Tell me where she is," Damon said quietly, an artificial pleasantness coating his words like liquid sugar, "or I will torture it out of you until pain is the only thing you know, because you _will _tell me what I want to know" He was absolutely serious about how much pain he would inflict, but he hoped that Tyler was at least smart enough to just tell him what he needed to know; a good torturing took time, and time was the one thing he could not waste.

The knife he had in the waist band of his trousers came free easily and he pressed it against Tyler's wrist in a threatening move. "Tell me." he commanded, his words dripping with venom, drawing the blade along the criss-cross of veins on the inside of the wrist. The only choice Tyler had was whether he wanted to lose his hand, and he only had seconds to choose.

"Stop it, man! Just drop the knife and I'll tell you!" he screamed, "Please!"

Damon was not a stupid man, not like his brother, and he only responded once the tip of the knife met bone, "I'm not stupid Tyler. Tell me where she is _now_ and you might just keep your right hand."

Tyler's face scrunched up for a second, as if he could not believe what he was about to do, and he pointed his left hand out into the night, his beefy finger quivering like the end of a fencing sword. "I buried her oh-oh-over there!"

Werewolves were cowards, Damon noted, disappearing into the darkness, where her breathing was loudest.

X

Bonnie hit the roof of the casket one more time, then her arms dropped to her sides in defeat; her throat had become raw and painful from calling for help and so she had resorted to hitting the lid of the coffin in hopes that someone would hear her. She hadn't allowed herself to dissolve into tears when she had first realised that she was stuck, trying to be strong and something she was not. Now she could cry, because there would be no one to see her do it. No one knew she was here, that she could be certain of. Her kidnappers had left no clues as to her location when they had snatched her away. The only way she knew herself where she was, was the hundreds of voices of the dead that fluttered around her like moths – ugly, grey sounds.

X

Damon stopped suddenly, his spine curving like a cat's, and he felt the anger that had been swallowed up by the grief and worry coming roaring back with a vengeance. If only he could keep on searching for the grave and not look around... if only he was strong enough to ignore her just this once. "Katherine," he said blandly, "I don't have time for you – I'm busy..."

She approached from behind him so quietly, her feet barely disturbing the grass beneath them, and he flinched when her hand touched his shoulder. Her laugh was as delicate as she seemed, but underneath it there was a triumphant glow. "I know where she is, your new play-thing, I know where she is buried..." there was that playfulness in her voice which told him that he would not get a straight answer.

Bonnie was not his play-thing, but this was no time to argue over semantics. It was true that she was his, and that he would retrieve her at any cost.

"Tell me where she is, Katherine," he bit his bottom lip with enough force that his teeth broke the skin, "Please."

She stepped in front of him and kissed him with enough fervour that for a moment or two he let her. When he managed to force her off him, her lips were coated with his blood and she licked them both as if it was ambrosia. She smiled the same smile that had won her into his heart so many centuries ago and pointed towards the old cemetery with one pale finger. "Over there," she said, her voice thick and seductive, "I saw the werewolf bury her over there – have fun finding her." she laughed and disappeared into the night.

"Bonnie!" he called into the night, listening for any sound beneath the earth.

X

So many voices – all calling to her from the dark depths of the earth, all vengeful and bitter. There was no telling what they would do when they rose up to find her, but somehow she did not think they would help her. If she weren't in love with a vampire they would help her, she thought, but if she had not been in love she didn't know where she would be. He was everything to her and she had already gotten too close to losing everything too many times before. It might not be best, but she was going to do what her heart knew was right.

She was going to love Damon Salvatore. "Damon, I love you!" Her voice was dry and raspy/

X

"There," Katherine said, a strange glint in her eyes, "about 6ft down."


	11. The Proposal

**Ghosts**

The spirits of the dead witches were all around her, surrounding her as she lay there, as motionless as the body this coffin was intended for. She sniffed and smelt decay; there was a nasty thought, one which she wished had never occurred to her. If she was in fact in a coffin it was probably second hand. The thought that a dead, rotting, body had been laid exactly where she was laying now made the atmosphere even thicker and suffocating.

X

He would have been able to dig faster had the soil been not so hard, and maybe if he had dug faster he would have gotten to her before the wolf decided it didn't want to be such a wimp. The soil must be saturated with... blood? No, not blood, he could not imagine feeling _her _blood on his fingers, because if he even allowed that thought an inch of consideration he might just lose it.

"What are you going to do once you have Bonnie?" Katherine asked.

"Have a word with Elena," he lifted a large lump of dirt with his clawed fingers, "maybe something more." The thought of Elena made the blood inside him boil, but it wasn't simply anger. He was furious with her, almost murderously so. Could he kill her? Definitely. Would he? Would he slay her in cold blood? His heart said yes.

"I must admit, I think you are the stronger of the two of us," She went on, her tone thoughtful.

"How so, Katherine? In what way? I am certainly not as cruel as you, as sadistic. What do I have on you?"

"You've made a choice." She said simply. "You chose her."

"Would it kill you to help?" he asked scathingly, trying to ignore the emotion within him, "I can't move this much soil with only my bare hands!" He was getting nowhere on his own, even with vampiric speed and strength, he could only move so much dirt at a time. Why hadn't he thought to bring a shovel? Because he did not own one – there had seemed no need to acquire one when his own body was tool enough.

"No," Katherine said almost casually, her dazzlingly blue eyes glinting in the moonlight like sapphire jewels. She crouched next to him on the ground, "but it would ruin my nails and these cost quite a bit at the salon." She saw the expression on his face, "But I do know what kind of creatures might do this – what do you know about Japanese folk-law?"

X

She was tired and could barely breathe. Each breath in felt like too much work and the ability to even shape words with her mouth had deserted her. It had taken too long to realise that she had only so much air too breathe, too long to understand the cost of each breath. She would suffocate before anyone ever found her, and without a spell they probably never would. If only she could think the words... but her brain wasn't working.

The only thing she felt was an aching in her chest – a kind of longing that nothing in this world could ever compare to. She doubted anyone else felt this level of desire for anyone, no matter how they proclaimed otherwise, not even Elena. Elena might love Stefan very much, but she did not love him enough that it was painful. This desire Bonnie had to be with Damon was strong and torturous when they were apart. Like now. She heard herself moaning but she could not fathom how she could find the energy to make the sound.

Bonnie's heart almost started beating faster when she heard the voices. If she hadn't been so lethargic she might have shouted something, the relief was that instantaneous and absolute. She thought she wouldn't care who freed her, it didn't really matter if they would help, but to see _her _wth him... well, she thought she would have almost preferred never being found at all.

"Bonnie!" Damon exclaimed, reaching into the pit to touch her.

X

The two Kitsune were by the stream when Stefan and Elena found them at last. They were so still at first that they could have been lawn ornaments for all that they moved. Their stillness was their disguise, Elena thought, and because she knew this it wasn't really a disguise at all. One was called Misao and the other was Shinichi, the two fox spirits who preferred to cause trouble than fix it.

When Stefan spoke his voice was quiet but it made Misao flinch just enough to reveal the trick. He looked at Elena and made a face that was in equal parts pained and humoured. "What have you done with Bonnie?"

"We took her to the graveyard," Shinichi sang, his voice so sweet and pure and yet all the more sinister for it.

X

Damon held her small body to his as they both sat on the ground, their eyes both unseeing and full of memories. He never wanted to feel that way again as long as he lived, and he knew he wouldn't as long as she could be at his side for all eternity. He bent to one knee with the grace of the most skilled dancer. He took her hand and kissed it and said, "Bonnie McCullough, I will understand if you say no, but..." he gulped, "Bonnie will you..."

She rushed into his arms, surprising him once again, and held him tightly.

"... Marry me?"

THE END

Thanks for reading, I hope you like it.


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